BioWare - Dragon Age 3: Inquistion Editorials

From what we know so far about Dragon Age III: Inquisition there seems to be a number of ways that Bioware can spin the story back in the direction we desire. But will they? The fact that they swayed the story in the second game leads me to believe they’ll have to account for those events specifically in the next game, more-so than the first game. I highly doubt whether Bioware will neglect to fall back on the events of Kirkwall, seeing as DA2 likely sold more than Origins did. Also, judging by how Mass Effect 3 turned out we can’t be too optimistic.

I think it is clear from how this post has been written that BioWare has learned that they need to be more upfront on who is working on their titles, to help mitigate the idea that BioWare has lost all its original staff. Mark makes it clear that he is a gamer and that he has loads of experience with traditional gaming. Mark was with BioWare from the beginning, well before I started.

I'm surprised about just how much I simply *don't care* about Dragon Age 3… and I used to be such a fan of Bioware games. But with kickstarter throwing up so many games that are worthy of being called RPGs - it's really no contest. I feel like someone who's been used to diet of ready meals suddenly being reminded how good old fashioned home cooking really is…

1) Since DA2 was a very successful game financially, BioWare could have simply said, "While we regret the re-use of maps and the stagnant setting, we feel the action-oriented awesome button gameplay is here to stay as it clearly appealed to a wider audience than Origins."

or

2) While DA2 was successful, and while we can't promise we're going to reverse course completely, we at least admit that we went too far by appealing to the console button-smashing audience, and that as a result, the spirit of RPGs took a hit.

I'm hearing more #2-type talk, and for me that's good. I sure as heck won't preorder, but I fully intend to play DA3 as long as I continue to hear candid commentary from those who have the power to make a difference with it.

Originally Posted by darkling
The combat was hardly the bad part of DA2. It was exactly the same as DA:O except without the overhead view and with way faster and flashier animations.

Well, in DA2 you had to manually doge some attacks - ie no electronic 'dice roll' based on dex, armor or whatever (eg Rock Wraith). This is an action game tenet.

To ensure that you that boss battles were sufficiently "awesome"TM in length, they put an arbitrary cap on the damage your party could do. There were a lot of people who found good CCCs/builds and were surprised that enemy hit points did not go down in the way the mathematics would suggest. The reason for that was that in short, Laidlaw decided to cheat, and hamstrung your party to make it all feel "epic"TM (eg you had to spend a minimum of 12 minutes fighting the Arishok on hard, no matter how much damage you were 'actually' dealing him).

They removed the need for manual positioning, so your rogue could backstab instantly from the other side of a hill by doing a 'Jade Empire on speed' double backflip. And if you wisely positioned your mage at the back of a room (where there was no door), enemies would still insta-kill him by simply spawning where he was. The fact that friendly fire was removed on all but nightmare is also interesting.

Enemies in DA2 all felt the same (hit point meat bags), compared with DA:O enemies using wide range of status effects, class abilities, and damage types. Encounters in DA:O were hand placed with traps and terrain, but were console wave spawns in DA2.

Originally Posted by Gaxkang
Well, in DA2 you had to manually doge some attacks - ie no electronic 'dice roll' based on dex, armor or whatever (eg Rock Wraith). This is an action game tenet.

Only for people who come up with RPG elements stories and that RPG must be tied to a statistical system to resolve situations.

Rolling dice is just one abstraction that is essential for gaming sectors like board gaming as it is one of the only solutions to resolve things like combat situations.

Computer games provide other ways to do and wishing to dismiss that opportunity is dismissing the potential of computers.

Board gaming comes with constraints that are not known on computers. Porting those restraints to video gaming, while they are not indigenous to the platform, is a waste in allocating resourcing. And combat situations do not have to be solved through dicey system on computers.

The opposition could be that live action is one tenet of computer gaming rather than action gaming. Because, well, in board gaming, there are also action games and situations are often solved used dices.

-- “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Why are there no shooter games with dice rolling ?

Because shooter games were (or are) nearly inexistant in board gaming, that shooter gaming where it existed was mostly live motion a la paint ball gaming , that video game designers had therefore to take into account the specificities of computers, which suited quite well to recall experience that you could get in some other shooter gaming sectors, when they started to think of developping shooter gaming on computers rather than importing mechanics that were used in some other gaming sectors as cRPG designers did?

I have to wonder why make it a shooter if it's got dice rolls? I think everyone would prefer a game with the perspective of fp, with the controls more similar to Full Spectrum Warrior, or even close to mechwarrior 3. i.e., you are controlling a robot, powered armor, or other clearly distinct avatar. You tell it what to do with point and click menus, but you don't actually aim anything (maybe you can highlight target regions, but that's all).